UON team join UN mission to educate people about the impact of firearms

A duo of academics from the University of Northampton travelled to Zagreb, to be part of an expert panel for the United Nations, shaping the way the world works together to promote peace and justice.

Senior Lecturers in Law, Nick Cartwright and Simon Sneddon, along with colleagues Mike Hughes Lecturer in Policing, Wray Irwin, Director of Enterprise and Employability and Helen Poole, former Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Health, were called upon by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to develop teaching materials for the Education 4 Justice (#E4J) programme, which aims to deter criminality and promote the rule of law across the globe. The Northampton team joined academics from across the world in developing educational resources to help educators support young people from primary school age understand the impact of firearms.

Nick and Simon recently travelled to Zagreb to deliver a workshop presenting the teaching resources to academics, government representatives, police and military experts.

Speaking after the workshop, Nick Cartwright said: “Firearms have increasingly become a part of daily life in many countries and communities, now is very much the right time to kick start a global education programme to raise awareness in young people, and educate them to take a peaceful approach to justice. I feel privileged to have been asked by the UNODC to be a part of this mission.”

“The workshop Simon and I presented in Zagreb introduced the underlying principles of the learning resources to educate young people about the issues connected with firearms. We’ve incorporated an active blended learning approach to the topic, elements of which are already being delivered in Northampton as part of the Transnational Rights and Security LLM.”

Simon Sneddon, said: “Whether firearms are used as an instrument of violent crimes, or a power and status symbol, or a criminal commodity themselves, the connection between firearms and crime clear. I believe that these resources are going to make a difference globally to the way young people think about the impact of criminality and firearms on their culture and communities.”

Plans are now being drawn up across the globe to use these teaching resources, here in Northampton the first cohort of students on the Transnational Rights and Security LLM are beginning their journey, studying from UN teaching resources.